[15] Cont.

==> (second half of Chapter) <==

.

.

STEPHEN

(to himself) Play with your eyes shut. Imitate pa. Filling my
belly with
husks of swine. Too much of this. I will arise and go to my. Expect this
is
the. Steve, thou art in a parlous way. Must visit old Deasy or telegraph.
Our
interview of this morning has left on me a deep impression. Though our
ages. Will write fully tomorrow. I'm partially drunk, by the way. (he
touches the keys again) Minor chord comes now. Yes. Not much however.

(The Siamese twins, Philip Drunk and Philip Sober, two Oxford
dons with lawnmowers, appear in the window embrasure. Both are
masked with Matthew Arnold's face.)

PHILIP SOBER

Take a fool's advice. All is not well. Work it out with the buttend
of a pencil,
like a good young idiot. Three pounds twelve you got, two notes, one
sovereign, two crowns, if youth but knew. Mooney's en ville, Mooney's sur
mer, the Moira, Larchet's, Holles street hospital, Burke's. Eh? I am
watching you.

(impatiently) Ah, bosh, man. Go to hell! I paid my way. If I
could only
find out about octaves. Reduplication of personality. Who was it told me
his
name? (his lawnmower begins to purr) Aha, yes. Zoe mou sas agapo.
Have
a notion I was here before. When was it not Atkinson his card I have
somewhere. Mac Somebody. Unmack I have it. He told me about, hold on,
Swinburne, was it, no?
.

(their lawnmowers purring with a rigadoon of grasshalms) Clever
ever.
Out of it out of it. By the bye have you the book, the thing, the ashplant?
Yes, there it, yes. Cleverever outofitnow. Keep in condition. Do like us.

.

.

ZOE

There was a priest down here two nights ago to do his bit of business
with

his coat buttoned up. You needn't try to hide, I says to him. I know you've
a
Roman collar.
.

.

VIRAG

Perfectly logical from his standpoint. Fall of man. (harshly, his
pupils
waxing) To hell with the pope! Nothing new under the sun. I am the
Virag
who disclosed the Sex Secrets of Monks and Maidens. Why I left the church
of Rome. Read the Priest, the Woman and the Confessional. Penrose.
Flipperty Jippert. (he wriggles) Woman, undoing with sweet pudor
her belt

of rushrope, offers her allmoist yoni to man's lingam. Short time after
man
presents woman with pieces of jungle meat. Woman shows joy and covers
herself with featherskins. Man loves her yoni fiercely with big lingam,
the

(A diabolic rictus of black luminosity contracting his visage, cranes
his
scraggy neck forward. He lifts a mooncalf nozzle and howls.) Verfluchte
Goim! He had a father, forty fathers. He never existed. Pig God! He
had

two left feet. He was Judas Iacchia, a Libyan eunuch, the pope's bastard.
(he leans out on tortured forepaws, elbows bent rigid, his eye agonising
in
his flat skullneck and yelps over the mute world) A son of a whore.
Apocalypse.
.

.

KITTY

And Mary Shortall that was in the lock with the pox she got from Jimmy
Pidgeon in the blue caps had a child off him that couldn't swallow and
was
smothered with the convulsions in the mattress and we all subscribed for
the funeral.

(agueshaken, profuse yellow spawn foaming over his bony epileptic
lips)She sold lovephiltres, whitewax, orangeflower. Panther, the Roman
centurion, polluted her with his genitories. (he sticks out a flickering
phosphorescent scorpion tongue, his hand on his fork) Messiah! He burst
her tympanum. (with gibbering baboon's cries he jerks his hips in the

(sloughing his skins, his multitudinous plumage moulting) Rats!
(he
yawns, showing a coalblack throat, and closes his jaws by an upward push
of his parchmentroll) After having said which I took my departure.
Farewell. Fare thee well. Dreck!

(Henry Flower combs his moustache and beard rapidly with a
pocketcomb and gives a cow's lick to his hair. Steered by his rapier,
he glides to the door, his wild harp slung behind him. Virag reaches
the door in two ungainly stilthops, his tail cocked, and deftly claps
sideways on the wall a pusyellow flybill, butting it with his head.)

(His Eminence Simon Stephen cardinal Dedalus, primate of all
Ireland, appears in the doorway, dressed in red soutane, sandals
and socks Seven dwarf simian acolytes, also in red, cardinal sins,
uphold his train, peeping under it He wears a battered silk hat
sideways on his head. His thumbs are stuck in his armpits and his
palms outspread. Round his neck hangs a rosary of corks ending on
his breast in a corkscrew cross. Releasing his thumbs, he invokes
grace from on high with large wave gestures and proclaims with
bloated pomp:)

imparts the Easter kiss and doubleshuffles off comically, swaying his
hat from side to side, shrinking quickly to the size of his
trainbearers.The dwarf acolytes, giggling, peeping, nudging, ogling,
easterkissing, zigzag behind him. His voice is heard mellow from
afar, merciful male, melodious:)

(A male form passes down the creaking staircase and is heard
taking the waterproof and hat from the rack. Bloom starts forward
involuntarily and, half closing the door as he passes, takes the
chocolate from his pocket and offers it nervously to Zoe.)

(hearing a male voice in talk with the whores on the doorstep, pricks
his
ears) If it were he? After? Or because not? Or the double event?

ZOE

(tears open the silverfoil) Fingers was made before forks. (she
breaks off
and nibbles a piece gives a piece to Kitty Ricketts and then turns kittenishly
to Lynch) No objection to French lozenges? (He nods. She taunts
him.)
Have it now or wait till you get it? (He opens his mouth, his head cocked.
She whirls the prize in left circle. His head follows. She whirls it back
in

door. Then rigid with left foot advanced he makes a swift pass with
impelling fingers and gives the sign of past master, drawing his right
arm
downwards from his left shoulder.) Go, go, go, I conjure you, whoever
you
are!

.

.

(A male cough and tread are heard passing through the mist
outside. Bloom's features relax. He places a hand in his waistcoat,
posing calmly. Zoe offers him chocolate.)

is dressed in a threequarter ivory gown, fringed round the hem with
tasselled selvedge, and cools herself flirting a black horn fan like
Minnie Hauck in Carmen. On her left hand are wedding and
keeper rings. Her eyes are deeply carboned. She has a sprouting
moustache. Her olive face is heavy, slightly sweated and fullnosed
with orangetainted nostrils. She has large pendant beryl eardrops.)

BELLA

My word! I'm all of a mucksweat.

(She glances round her at the couples Then her eyes rest on Bloom
with hard insistence. Her large fan winnows wind towards her

(cowed) Exuberant female. Enormously I desiderate your domination.
I
am exhausted, abandoned, no more young. I stand, so to speak, with an
unposted letter bearing the extra regulation fee before the too late box
of the
general postoffice of human life. The door and window open at a right

angle cause a draught of thirtytwo feet per second according to the law
of
falling bodies. I have felt this instant a twinge of sciatica in my left
glutear

muscle. It runs in our family. Poor dear papa, a widower, was a regular
barometer from it. He believed in animal heat. A skin of tabby lined his
winter waistcoat. Near the end, remembering king David and the Sunamite,
he shared his bed with Athos, faithful after death. A dog's spittle as
you
probably.... (he winces) Ah!

RICHIE GOULDING

(bagweighted, passes the door) Mocking is catch. Best value in
Dub. Fit for
a prince's. Liver and kidney.

(with desire, with reluctance) I can make a true black knot.
Learned when
I served my time and worked the mail order line for Kellett's. Experienced
hand. Every knot says a lot. Let me. In courtesy. I knelt once before today.

(Bella raises her gown slightly and, steadying her pose, lifts to
the
edge of a chair a plump buskined hoof and a full pastern,
silksocked. Bloom, stifflegged, aging, bends over her hoof and with
gentle fingers draws out and in her laces.)

(murmurs lovingly) To be a shoefitter in Manfield's was my love's
young
dream, the darling joys of sweet buttonhooking, to lace up crisscrossed
to
kneelength the dressy kid footwear satinlined, so incredibly impossibly
small, of Clyde Road ladies. Even their wax model Raymonde I visited daily
to admire her cobweb hose and stick of rhubarb toe, as worn in Paris.

(laughs loudly) Holy smoke! You little know what's in store for
you. I'm
the Tartar to settle your little lot and break you in! I'll bet Kentucky
cocktails all round I shame it out of you, old son. Cheek me, I dare you.
If
you do tremble in anticipation of heel discipline to be inflicted in gym
costume.

(hiding her with her gown) She didn't mean it, Mr Bello. She'll
be good,
sir.

KITTY

Don't be too hard on her, Mr Bello. Sure you won't, ma'amsir.

BELLO

(coaxingly) Come, ducky dear, I want a word with you, darling,
just to
administer correction. Just a little heart to heart talk, sweety. (Bloom
puts
out her timid head) There's a good girly now. (Bello grabs her hair

violently and drags her forward) I only want to correct you for your
own
good on a soft safe spot. How's that tender behind? O, ever so gently,
pet.
Begin to get ready.

BLOOM

(fainting) Don't tear my ...

BELLO

(savagely) The nosering, the pliers, the bastinado, the hanging
hook, the
knout I'll make you kiss while the flutes play like the Nubian slave of
old.
You're in for it this time! I'll make you remember me for the balance of
your natural life. (his forehead veins swollen, his face congested)
I shall sit

on your ottoman saddleback every morning after my thumping good
breakfast of Matterson's fat hamrashers and a bottle of Guinness's porter.
(he belches) And suck my thumping good Stock Exchange cigar while
I
read the Licensed Victualler's Gazette. Very possibly I shall have
you
slaughtered and skewered in my stables and enjoy a slice of you with crisp
crackling from the baking tin basted and baked like sucking pig with rice
and lemon or currant sauce. It will hurt you. (He twists her arm. Bloom
squeals, turning turtle.)

rollingpin stuck with raw pastry in her bare red arm and hand,
appears at the door.)

MRS KEOGH

(ferociously) Can I help?

(They hold and pinion Bloom.)

BELLO

(squats with a grunt on Bloom's upturned face, puffing cigarsmoke,
nursing a fat leg) I see Keating Clay is elected vicechairman of the
Richmond asylum and by the by Guinness's preference shares are at sixteen
three quaffers. Curse me for a fool that didn't buy that lot Craig and

Ask for that every ten minutes. Beg. Pray for it as you never prayed
before.
(he thrusts out a figged fist and foul cigar) Here, kiss that. Both.
Kiss. (he
throws a leg astride and, pressing with horseman's knees, calls in a hard
voice) Gee up! A cockhorse to Banbury cross. I'll ride him for the
Eclipse

stakes. (he bends sideways and squeezes his mount's testicles roughly,
shouting) Ho! Off we pop! I'll nurse you in proper fashion. (he
horserides
cockhorse, leaping in the, in the saddle) The lady goes a pace a pace
and
the coachman goes a trot a trot and the gentleman goes a gallop a gallop
a
gallop a gallop.

FLORRY

(pulls at Bello) Let me on him now. You had enough. I asked before
you.

ZOE

(pulling at Florry) Me. Me. Are you not finished with him yet,
suckeress?

pass. Henceforth you are unmanned and mine in earnest, a thing under the
yoke. Now for your punishment frock. You will shed your male garments,
you understand, Ruby Cohen? and don the shot silk luxuriously rustling
over head and shoulders. And quickly too!

measurements will be taken next your skin. You will be laced with cruel
force into vicelike corsets of soft dove coutille with whalebone busk to
the
diamondtrimmed pelvis, the absolute outside edge, while your figure,
plumper than when at large, will be restrained in nettight frocks, pretty
two
ounce petticoats and fringes and things stamped, of course, with my
houseflag, creations of lovely lingerie for Alice and nice scent for Alice.
Alice will feel the pullpull.Martha and Mary will be a little chilly at
first in
such delicate thighcasing but the frilly flimsiness of lace round your
bare
knees will remind you .....

(charming soubrette with dauby cheeks, mustard hair and large male
hands and nose, leering mouth) I tried her things on only twice, a
small
prank, in Holles street. When we were hard up I washed them to save the
laundry bill. My own shirts I turned. It was the purest thrift.

BELLO

(jeers) Little jobs that make mother pleased, eh? And showed
off
coquettishly in your domino at the mirror behind closedrawn blinds your
unskirted thighs and hegoat's udders in various poses of surrender, eh?
Ho! ho! I have to laugh! That secondhand black operatop shift and short
trunkleg naughties all split up the stitches at her last rape that Mrs
Miriam

from old Trinity, Ponto, her splendid Newfoundland and Bobs, dowager
duchess of Manorhamilton. (he guffaws again) Christ, wouldn't it
make a
Siamese cat laugh?

BLOOM

(her hands and features working) It was Gerald converted me to
be a true
corsetlover when I was female impersonator in the High School play Vice
Versa. It was dear Gerald. He got that kink, fascinated by sister's stays.
Now dearest Gerald uses pinky greasepaint and gilds his eyelids. Cult of
the beautiful.

(with wicked glee) Beautiful! Give us a breather! When you took
your seat
with womanish care, lifting your billowy flounces, on the smoothworn
throne.

BLOOM

Science. To compare the various joys we each enjoy. (earnestly)
And really
it's better the position .... because often I used to wet ....

BELLO

(sternly) No insubordination! The sawdust is there in the corner
for you. I
gave you strict instructions, didn't I? Do it standing, sir! I'll teach
you to
behave like a jinkleman! If I catch a trace on your swaddles. Aha! By the

ass of the Dorans you'll find I'm a martinet. The sins of your past are
rising
against you. Many. Hundreds.

THE SINS OF THE PAST

(in a medley of voices) He went through a form of clandestine
marriage
with at least one woman in the shadow of the Black church. Unspeakable
messages he telephoned mentally to Miss Dunn at an address in D'Olier
street while he presented himself indecently to the instrument in the callbox.
By word and deed he frankly encouraged a nocturnal strumpet to deposit
fecal and other matter in an unsanitary outhouse attached to empty
premises. In five public conveniences he wrote pencilled messages offering

his nuptial partner to all strongmembered males. And by the offensively
smelling vitriol works did he not pass night after night by loving courting
couples to see if and what and how much he could see? Did he not lie in
bed, the gross boar, gloating over a nauseous fragment of wellused toilet
paper presented to him by a nasty harlot, stimulated by gingerbread and
a
postal order?

BELLO

(whistles loudly) Say! What was the most revolting piece of obscenity
in all
your career of crime? Go the whole hog. Puke it out! Be candid for once.

stripling, Larry rhinoceros, the girl, the woman, the whore, the
other the, lane the.)

BLOOM

Don't ask me! Our mutual faith. Pleasants street. I only thought the
half of
the ... I swear on my sacred oath ....

BELLO

(peremptorily) Answer. Repugnant wretch! I insist on knowing.
Tell me
something to amuse me, smut or a bloody good ghoststory or a line of
poetry, quick, quick, quick! Where? How? What time? With how many? I

(satirically) By day you will souse and bat our smelling underclothes
also
when we ladies are unwell, and swab out our latrines with dress pinned
up
and a dishclout tied to your tail. Won't that be nice? (he places a
ruby ring
on her finger) And there now! With this ring I thee own. Say, thank
you,
mistress.

BLOOM

Thank you, mistress.

BELLO

You will make the beds, get my tub ready, empty the pisspots in the
different
rooms, including old Mrs Keogh's the cook's, a sandy one. Ay, and rinse

the seven of them well, mind, or lap it up like champagne. Drink me piping
hot. Hop! You will dance attendance or I'll lecture you on your misdeeds,
Miss Ruby, and spank your bare bot right well, miss, with the hairbrush.
You'll be taught the error of your ways. At night your wellcreamed
braceletted hands will wear fortythreebutton gloves newpowdered with talc
and having delicately scented fingertips. For such favours knights of old

laid down their lives. (he chuckles) My boys will be no end charmed
to see
you so ladylike, the colonel, above all, when they come here the night
before
the wedding to fondle my new attraction in gilded heels. First I'll have
a go
at you myself. A man I know on the turf named Charles Alberta Marsh (I

was in bed with him just now and another gentleman out of the Hanaper
and Petty Bag office) is on the lookout for a maid of all work at a short
knock. Swell the bust. Smile. Droop shoulders. What offers? (he points)
For that lot. Trained by owner to fetch and carry, basket in mouth. (he
bares his arm and plunges it elbowdeep in Bloom's vulva) There's fine
depth for you! What, boys? That give you a hardon? (he shoves his arm
in
a bidder's face) Here wet the deck and wipe it round!

(gives a rap with his gavel) Two bar. Rockbottom figure and cheap
at the
price. Fourteen hands high. Touch and examine shis points. Handle hrim.
This downy skin, these soft muscles, this tender flesh. If I had only my
gold

piercer here! And quite easy to milk. Three newlaid gallons a day. A pure
stockgetter, due to lay within the hour. His sire's milk record was a
thousand gallons of whole milk in forty weeks. Whoa my jewel! Beg up!
Whoa! (he brands his initial C on Bloom's croup) So! Warranted Cohen!
What advance on two bob, gentlemen?

(gaily) Right. Let them all come. The scanty, daringly short
skirt, riding up
at the knee to show a peep of white pantalette, is a potent weapon and
transparent stockings, emeraldgartered, with the long straight seam trailing
up beyond the knee, appeal to the better instincts of the blase
man about
town. Learn the smooth mincing walk on four inch Louis Quinze heels, the
Grecian bend with provoking croup, the thighs fluescent, knees modestly
kissing. Bring all your powers of fascination to bear on them. Pander to
their Gomorrahan vices.

(bends his blushing face into his armpit and simpers with forefinger
in
mouth) O, I know what you're hinting at now!

BELLO

What else are you good for, an impotent thing like you? (he stoops
and,
peering, pokes with his fan rudely under the fat suet folds of Bloom's
haunches) Up! Up! Manx cat! What have we here? Where's your curly
teapot gone to or who docked it on you, cockyolly? Sing, birdy, sing. It's
as
limp as a boy of six's doing his pooly behind a cart. Buy a bucket or sell
your pump. (loudly) Can you do a man's job?

(sarcastically) I wouldn't hurt your feelings for the world but
there's a
man of brawn in possession there. The tables are turned, my gay young
fellow! He is something like a fullgrown outdoor man. Well for you, you
muff, if you had that weapon with knobs and lumps and warts all over it.
He shot his bolt, I can tell you! Foot to foot, knee to knee, belly to
belly,
bubs to breast! He's no eunuch. A shock of red hair he has sticking out
of
him behind like a furzebush! Wait for nine months, my lad! Holy ginger,
it's kicking and coughing up and down in her guts already! That makes

slept horizontal in Sleepy Hollow your night of twenty years. Return and
see.

(Old Sleepy Hollow calls over the wold.)

SLEEPY HOLLOW

Rip van Wink! Rip van Winkle!

BLOOM

(in tattered mocassins with a rusty fowlingpiece, tiptoeing, fingertipping,
his haggard bony bearded face peering through the diamond panes, cries
out) I see her! It's she! The first night at Mat Dillon's! But that
dress, the
green! And her hair is dyed gold and he ....

menfriends are living there in clover. The Cuckoos' Rest! Why not? How
many women had you, eh, following them up dark streets, flatfoot, exciting
them by your smothered grunts, what, you male prostitute? Blameless
dames with parcels of groceries. Turn about. Sauce for the goose, my
gander O.

BLOOM

They.... I ....

BELLO

(cuttingly) Their heelmarks will stamp the Brusselette carpet
you bought at
Wren's auction. In their horseplay with Moll the romp to find the buck
flea

in her breeches they will deface the little statue you carried home in
the rain
for art for art' sake. They will violate the secrets of your bottom drawer.
Pages will be torn from your handbook of astronomy to make them
pipespills. And they will spit in your ten shilling brass fender from
Hampton Leedom's.

BLOOM

Ten and six. The act of low scoundrels. Let me go. I will return. I
will
prove ...

you. I can give you a rare old wine that'll send you skipping to hell and
back. Sign a will and leave us any coin you have! If you have none see
you
damn well get it, steal it, rob it! We'll bury you in our shrubbery jakes
where you'll be dead and dirty with old Cuck Cohen, my stepnephew I
married, the bloody old gouty procurator and sodomite with a crick in his
neck, and my other ten or eleven husbands, whatever the buggers' names
were, suffocated in the one cesspool. (he explodes in a loud phlegmy
laugh)
We'll manure you, Mr Flower! (he pipes scoffingly) Byby, Poldy!
Byby,
Papli!

Mortal! You found me in evil company, highkickers, coster picnicmakers,
pugilists, popular generals, immoral panto boys in fleshtights and the
nifty
shimmy dancers, La Aurora and Karini, musical act, the hit of the century.
I was hidden in cheap pink paper that smelt of rock oil. I was surrounded

by the stale smut of clubmen, stories to disturb callow youth, ads for
transparencies, truedup dice and bustpads, proprietary articles and why
wear a truss with testimonial from ruptured gentleman. Useful hints to
the
married.

BLOOM

(lifts a turtle head towards her lap) We have met before. On
another star.

(humbly kisses her long hair) Your classic curves, beautiful
immortal, I
was glad to look on you, to praise you, a thing of beauty, almost to pray.

THE NYMPH

During dark nights I heard your praise.

BLOOM

(quickly) Yes, yes. You mean that I.... Sleep reveals the worst
side of
everyone, children perhaps excepted. I know I fell out of bed or rather
was
pushed. Steel wine is said to cure snoring. For the rest there is that
English

(pigeonbreasted, bottleshouldered, padded, in nondescript juvenile
grey
and black striped suit, too small for him, white tennis shoes, bordered
stockings with turnover tops and a red schoolcap with badge) I was
in my
teens, a growing boy. A little then sufficed, a jolting car, the mingling
odours of the ladies' cloakroom and lavatory, the throng penned tight on
the old Royal stairs (for they love crushes, instinct of the herd, and
the dark
sexsmelling theatre unbridles vice), even a pricelist of their hosiery.
And
then the heat. There were sunspots that summer. End of school. And
tipsycake. Halcyon days.

all the bells in Montague street. (he cheers feebly) Hurray for
the High
School!

THE ECHO

Fool!

THE YEWS

(rustling) She is right, our sister. Whisper. (Whispered kisses
are heard in
all the wood. Faces of hamadryads peep out from the boles and among the
leaves and break, blossoming into bloom.) Who profaned our silent shade?

attraction is a natural phenomenon. Lotty Clarke, flaxenhaired, I saw at
her
night toilette through illclosed curtains with poor papa's operaglasses:
The
wanton ate grass wildly. She rolled downhill at Rialto bridge to tempt
me
with her flow of animal spirits. She climbed their crooked tree and I.
A saint
couldn't resist it. The demon possessed me. Besides, who saw?

(Staggering Bob, a whitepolled calf, thrusts a ruminating head with
humid nostrils through the foliage.)

(alone on deck, in dark alpaca, yellowkitefaced, his hand in his
waistcoat
opening, declaims) When my country takes her place among the nations
of
the earth, then, and not till then, let my epitaph be written. I have ...

BLOOM

Done. Prff!

THE NYMPH

(loftily) We immortals, as you saw today, have not such a place
and no hair
there either. We are stonecold and pure. We eat electric light. (she
arches
her body in lascivious crispation, placing her forefinger in her mouth)

(pawing the heather abjectly) O, I have been a perfect pig. Enemas
too I
have administered. One third of a pint of quassia to which add a
tablespoonful of rocksalt. Up the fundament. With Hamilton Long's
syringe, the ladies' friend.

THE NYMPH

In my presence. The powderpuff. (she blushes and makes a knee)
And the
rest!

(her features hardening, gropes in the folds of her habit) Sacrilege!
To
attempt my virtue! (a large moist stain appears on her robe) Sully
my
innocence! You are not fit to touch the garment of a pure woman. (she
clutches again in her robe) Wait. Satan, you'll sing no more lovesongs.
Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. (she draws a poniard and, clad in the
sheathmail of an elected knight of nine, strikes at his loins) Nekum!

BLOOM

(starts up, seizes her hand) Hoy! Nebrakada! Cat o' nine lives!
Fair play,
madam. No pruningknife. The fox and the grapes, is it? What do you lack

with your barbed wire? Crucifix not thick enough? (he clutches her veil)
A
holy abbot you want or Brophy, the lame gardener, or the spoutless statue
of the watercarrier, or good mother Alphonsus, eh Reynard?

THE NYMPH

(with a cry flees from him unveiled, her plaster cast cracking, a
cloud of
stench escaping from the cracks) Poli ...!

BLOOM

(calls after her) As if you didn't get it on the double yourselves.
No jerks
and multiple mucosities all over you. I tried it. Your strength our weakness.
What's our studfee? What will you pay on the nail? You fee mendancers on

benefit your complexion. And take some double chin drill. Your eyes are
as
vapid as the glasseyes of your stuffed fox. They have the dimensions of
your
other features, that's all. I'm not a triple screw propeller.

(turns to the piano) Which of you was playing the dead march
from Saul?

ZOE

Me. Mind your cornflowers. (she darts to the piano and bangs chords
on it
with crossed arms) The cat's ramble through the slag. (she glances
back)
Eh? Who's making love to my sweeties? (she darts back to the table)

(delightedly) A hundred thousand apologies. (he fumbles again
and takes
out and hands her two crowns) Permit, brevi manu, my sight is
somewhat
troubled.

(Bella goes to the table to count the money while Stephen talks to
himself in monosyllables. Zoe bends over the table. Kitty leans over
Zoe's neck. Lynch gets up, rights his cap and, clasping Kitty's
waist, adds his head to the group.)

(chattering and squabbling) The gentleman... ten shillings....
paying for
the three... allow me a moment... this gentleman pays separate.... who's
touching it?... ow!... mind who you're pinching... are you staying the
night or a short time?... who did?... you're a liar, excuse me... the
gentleman paid down like a gentleman ... drink ... it's long after eleven.

STEPHEN

(at the pianola, making a gesture of abhorrence) No bottles!
What, eleven?
A riddle!

(comes to the table) Cigarette, please. (Lynch tosses a cigarette
from the
sofa to the table) And so Georgina Johnson is dead and married. (A
cigarette appears on the table. Stephen looks at it) Wonder. Parlour
magic. Married. Hm. (he strikes a match and proceeds to light the cigarette

(watching him) You would have a better chance of lighting it
if you held
the match nearer.

STEPHEN

(brings the match near his eye) Lynx eye. Must get glasses. Broke
them
yesterday. Sixteen years ago. Distance. The eye sees all flat. (He draws
the
match away. It goes out.) Brain thinks. Near: far. Ineluctable modality
of
the visible. (he frowns mysteriously) Hm. Sphinx. The beast that
has two
backs at midnight. Married.

(points to his hand) That weal there is an accident. Fell and
cut it
twentytwo years ago. I was sixteen.

ZOE

I see, says the blind man. Tell us news.

STEPHEN

See? Moves to one great goal. I am twentytwo. Sixteen years ago he was
twentytwo too. Sixteen years ago I twentytwo tumbled. Twentytwo years
ago he sixteen fell off his hobbyhorse. (he winces) Hurt my hand
somewhere. Must see a dentist. Money?

(A hackneycar, number three hundred and twentyfour, with a
gallantbuttocked mare, driven by James Barton, Harmony avenue,
Donnybrook, trots past. Blazes Boylan and Lenehan sprawl
swaying on the sideseats. The Ormond boots crouches behind on
the axle. Sadly over the crossblind Lydia Douce and Mina Kennedy
gaze.)

(jogging, mocks them with thumb and wriggling wormfingers) Haw
haw
have you the horn?

(Bronze by gold they whisper.)

ZOE

(to Florry) Whisper. (she whispers again)

(Over the well of the car Blazes Boylan leans, his boater straw set
sideways, a red flower in his mouth. Lenehan in yachtsman's cap
and white shoes officiously detaches a long hair from Blazes
Boylan's coat shoulder.)

Let him look, the pishogue! Pimp! And scourge himself! I'll write to
a
powerful prostitute or Bartholomona, the bearded woman, to raise weals
out on him an inch thick and make him bring me back a signed and
stamped receipt.

Lapses are condoned. Even the great Napoleon when measurements were
taken next the skin after his death ...

(Mrs Dignam, widow woman, her snubnose and cheeks flushed
with deathtalk, tears and Tunney's tawny sherry, hurries by in her
weeds, her bonnet awry, rouging and powdering her cheeks, lips
and nose, a pen chivvying her brood of cygnets. Beneath her skirt

appear her late husband's everyday trousers and turnedup boots,
large eights. She holds a Scottish Widows' insurance policy and a
large marquee umbrella under which her brood run with her, Patsy
hopping on one shod foot, his collar loose, a hank of porksteaks
dangling, Freddy whimpering, Susy with a crying cod's mouth,
Alice struggling with the baby. She cuffs them on, her streamers
flaunting aloft.)

Et exaltabuntur cornua iusti. Queens lay with prize bulls. Remember
Pasiphae for whose lust my grandoldgrossfather made the first
confessionbox. Forget not Madam Grissel Steevens nor the suine scions of
the house of Lambert. And Noah was drunk with wine. And his ark was
open.

(gabbles with marionette jerks) Thousand places of entertainment
to
expense your evenings with lovely ladies saling gloves and other things
perhaps hers heart beerchops perfect fashionable house very eccentric
where lots cocottes beautiful dressed much about princesses like are
dancing cancan and walking there parisian clowneries extra foolish for
bachelors foreigns the same if talking a poor english how much smart they
are on things love and sensations voluptuous. Misters very selects for
is
pleasure must to visit heaven and hell show with mortuary candles and they

(with head back, laughs loudly, clapping himself grimacing) Great
success
of laughing. Angels much prostitutes like and holy apostles big damn
ruffians. Demimondaines nicely handsome sparkling of diamonds very
amiable costumed. Or do you are fond better what belongs they moderns
pleasure turpitude of old mans? (he points about him with grotesque
gestures which Lynch and the whores reply to) Caoutchouc statue woman
reversible or lifesize tompeeptom of virgins nudities very lesbic the kiss
five
ten times. Enter, gentleman, to see in mirror every positions trapezes
all that
machine there besides also if desire act awfully bestial butcher's boy
pollutes in warm veal liver or omlet on the belly piece de Shakespeare.

(The fronds and spaces of the wallpaper file rapidly crosscountry.
A stout fox, drawn from covert, brush pointed, having buried his
grandmother, runs swift for the open, brighteyed, seeking badger
earth, under the leaves. The pack of staghounds follows, nose to the
ground, sniffing their quarry, beaglebaying, burblbrbling to be
blooded. Ward Union huntsmen and huntswomen live with them,
hot for a kill. From Six Mile Point, Flathouse, Nine Mile Stone
follow the footpeople with knotty sticks, hayforks, salmongaffs,

rustyarmoured, leaping, leaping in their, in their saddles. Last in a
drizzle of rain on a brokenwinded isabelle nag, Cock of the North,
the favourite, honey cap, green jacket, orange sleeves, Garrett Deasy
up, gripping the reins, a hockeystick at the ready. His nag on
spavined whitegaitered feet jogs along the rocky road.)

THE ORANGE LODGES

(jeering) Get down and push, mister. Last lap! You'll be home
the night!

GARRETT DEASY

(bolt upright, his nailscraped face plastered with postagestamps,
brandishes
his hockeystick, his blue eyes flashing in the prism of the chandelier
as his

Professor
Goodwin, in a bowknotted periwig, in court dress, wearing a
stained Inverness cape, bent in two from incredible age, totters
across the room, his hands fluttering. He sits tinily on the pianostool
and lifts and beats handless sticks of arms on the keyboard, nodding
with damsel's grace, his bowknot bobbing)

(The pianola with changing lights plays in waltz time the prelude
of My Girl's a Yorkshire Girl. Stephen throws his ashplant on the
table and seizes Zoe round the waist. Florry and Bella push the
table towards the fireplace. Stephen, arming Zoe with exaggerated

on the toepoint of which spins a silk hat. With a deft kick he sends
it spinning to his crown and jauntyhatted skates in. He wears a slate
frockcoat with claret silk lapels, a gorget of cream tulle, a green
lowcut waistcoat, stock collar with white kerchief, tight lavender
trousers, patent pumps and canary gloves. In his buttonhole is an
immense dahlia. He twirls in reversed directions a clouded cane,
then wedges it tight in his oxter. He places a hand lightly on his

(The morning and noon hours waltz in their places, turning,
advancing to each other, shaping their curves, bowing visavis.
Cavaliers behind them arch and suspend their arms, with hands
descending to, touching, rising from their shoulders.)

(The night hours, one by one, steal to the last place. Morning, noon
and twilight hours retreat before them. They are masked, with
daggered hair and bracelets of dull bells. Weary they curchycurchy
under veils.)

(Stephen's mother, emaciated, rises stark through the floor, in leper
grey with a wreath of faded orangeblossoms and a torn bridal veil,
her face worn and noseless, green with gravemould. Her hair is
scant and lank. She fixes her bluecircled hollow eyesockets on
Stephen and opens her toothless mouth uttering a silent word. A

(with the subtle smile of death's madness) I was once the beautiful
May
Goulding. I am dead.

STEPHEN

(horrorstruck) Lemur, who are you? No. What bogeyman's trick
is this?

BUCK MULLIGAN

(shakes his curling capbell) The mockery of it! Kinch dogsbody
killed her
bitchbody. She kicked the bucket. (tears of molten butter fall from
his eyes
on to the scone) Our great sweet mother! Epi oinopa ponton

(eagerly) Tell me the word, mother, if you know now. The word
known to
all men.

THE MOTHER

Who saved you the night you jumped into the train at Dalkey with Paddy
Lee? Who had pity for you when you were sad among the strangers?
Prayer is allpowerful. Prayer for the suffering souls in the Ursuline manual
and forty days' indulgence. Repent, Stephen.

O, I know. Bulldog on the premises. But he's a Trinity student. Patrons
of
your establishment. Gentlemen that pay the rent. (he makes a masonic
sign) Know what I mean? Nephew of the vicechancellor. You don't want
a
scandal.

What? Where? (he throws a shilling on the table and starts) That's
for the
chimney. Where? I need mountain air.

(He hurries out through the hall. The whores point. Florry follows,
spilling water from her tilted tumbler. On the doorstep all the
whores clustered talk volubly, pointing to the right where the fog
has cleared off From the left arrives a jingling hackney car. It slows
to in front of the house. Bloom at the halldoor perceives Corny
Kelleher who is about to dismount from the car with two silent
lechers. He averts his face. Bella from within the hall urges on her
whores. They blow ickylickysticky yumyum kisses. Corny Kelleher

replies with a ghastly lewd smile. The silent lechers turn to pay the
jarvey. Zoe and Kitty still point right.
.

.

Bloom, parting them swiftly,

draws his caliph's hood and poncho and hurries down the steps
with sideways face. Incog Haroun Al Raschid he flits behind the
silent lechers and hastens on by the railings with fleet step of a pard
strewing the drag behind him, torn envelopes drenched in aniseed.
The ashplant marks his stride. A pack of bloodhounds, led by
Hornblower of Trinity brandishing a dogwhip in tallyho cap and
an old pair of grey trousers, follow from fir, picking up the scent,
nearer, baying, panting, at fault, breaking away, throwing their

(At the corner of Beaver street beneath the scaffolding Bloom
panting stops on the fringe of the noisy quarrelling knot, a lot not
knowing a jot what hi! hi! row and wrangle round the whowhat
brawlaltogether.)

.

.

STEPHEN

(with elaborate gestures, breathing deeply and slowly) You are
my guests.
Uninvited. By virtue of the fifth of George and seventh of Edward. History

(looks up to the sky) How? Very unpleasant. Noble art of selfpretence.
Personally, I detest action. (he waves his hand) Hand hurts me slightly.Enfin ce sont vos oignons. (to Cissy Caffrey) Some trouble is on
here.
What is it precisely?

DOLLY GRAY

(from her balcony waves her handkerchief, giving the sign of the
heroine of
Jericho) Rahab. Cook's son, goodbye. Safe home to Dolly. Dream of the
girl you left behind and she will dream of you.

(turns) Eh? (he disengages himself) Why should I not speak
to him or to
any human being who walks upright upon this oblate orange? (he points
his finger) I'm not afraid of what I can talk to if I see his eye.
Retaining the
perpendicular. (he staggers a pace back)

(laughs emptily) My centre of gravity is displaced. I have forgotten
the
trick. Let us sit down somewhere and discuss. Struggle for life is the
law of
existence but but human philirenists, notably the tsar and the king of
England, have invented arbitration. (he taps his brow) But in here
it is I
must kill the priest and the king.

.

.

BIDDY THE CLAP

Did you hear what the professor said? He's a professor out of the college.

Denmark, Skinner's and Probyn's horse, Lincoln 's Inn bencher
and ancient and honourable artillery company of Massachusetts.
He sucks a red jujube. He is robed as a grand elect perfect and
sublime mason with trowel and apron, marked made in Germany.
In his left hand he holds a plasterer's bucket on which is printed
Defense d'uriner. A roar of welcome greets him.)

EDWARD THE SEVENTH

(slowly, solemnly but indistinctly) Peace, perfect peace. For
identification,
bucket in my hand. Cheerio, boys. (he turns to his subjects) We
have come
here to witness a clean straight fight and we heartily wish both men the
best

(nervous, friendly, pulls himself up) I understand your point
of view
though I have no king myself for the moment. This is the age of patent
medicines. A discussion is difficult down here. But this is the point.
You die

for your country. Suppose. (he places his arm on Private Carr's sleeve)
Not that I wish it for you. But I say: Let my country die for me. Up to
the
present it has done so. I didn't want it to die. Damn death. Long live
life!

EDWARD THE SEVENTH

(levitates over heaps of slain, in the garb and with the halo of
Joking Jesus,
a white jujube in his phosphorescent face)

My methods are new and are causing surprise.
To make the blind see I throw dust in their eyes.

STEPHEN

Kings and unicorns! (he fills back a pace) Come somewhere and
we'll...

(in medieval hauberk, two wild geese volant on his helm, with noble
indignation points a mailed hand against the privates) Werf those eykes
to
footboden, big grand porcos of johnyellows todos covered of gravy!

I bear no hate to a living thing,
But I love my country beyond the king.

RUMBOLD, DEMON BARBER

(accompanied by two blackmasked assistants, advances with gladstone
bag
which he opens) Ladies and gents, cleaver purchased by Mrs Pearcy to
slay
Mogg. Knife with which Voisin dismembered the wife of a compatriot and
hid remains in a sheet in the cellar, the unfortunate female's throat being
cut from ear to ear. Phial containing arsenic retrieved from body of Miss
Barron which sent Seddon to the gallows.

(He jerks the rope. The assistants leap at the victim's legs and
drag
him downward, grunting The croppy boy's tongue protrudes
violently.)

THE CROPPY BOY

Horhot ho hray hor hother's hest.

(He gives up the ghost. A violent erection of the hanged sends gouts
of sperm spouting through his deathclothes on to the cobblestones.
Mrs Bellingham, Mrs Yelverton Barry and the Honourable Mrs
Mervyn Talboys rush forward with their handkerchiefs to sop it
up.)

I'm near it myself. (he undoes the noose) Rope which hanged the
awful
rebel. Ten shillings a time. As applied to Her Royal Highness. (he plunges
his head into the gaping belly of the hanged and draws out his head again
clotted with coiled and smoking entrails) My painful duty has now been
done. God save the king!

(throws up his hands) O, this is too monotonous! Nothing. He
wants my
money and my life, though want must be his master, for some brutish
empire of his. Money I haven't. (he searches his pockets vaguely)
Gave it
to someone.

Aha! I know you, gammer! Hamlet, revenge! The old sow that eats her
farrow!

OLD GUMMY GRANNY

(rocking to and fro) Ireland's sweetheart, the king of Spain's
daughter,
alanna. Strangers in my house, bad manners to them! (she keens with
banshee woe) Ochone! Ochone! Silk of the kine! (she wails) You
met with
poor old Ireland and how does she stand?

STEPHEN

How do I stand you? The hat trick! Where's the third person of the Blessed
Trinity? Soggarth Aroon? The reverend Carrion Crow.

bearskin cap with hackleplume and accoutrements, with epaulettes,
gilt chevrons and sabretaches, his breast bright with medals, toes
the line. He gives the pilgrim warrior's sign of the knights
templars.)

and appear to many. A chasm opens with a noiseless yawn. Tom
Rochford, winner, in athlete's singlet and breeches, arrives at the
head of the national hurdle handicap and leaps into the void. He is
followed by a race of runners and leapers. In wild attitudes they
spring from the brink. Their bodies plunge. Factory lasses with
fancy clothes toss redhot Yorkshire baraabombs. Society ladies lift
their skirts above their heads to protect themselves. Laughing
witches in red cutty sarks ride through the air on broomsticks.
Quakerlyster plasters blisters. It rains dragons' teeth. Armed heroes

of the red cross and fight duels with cavalry sabres: Wolfe Tone
against Henry Grattan, Smith O'Brien against Daniel O'Connell,
Michael Davitt against Isaac Butt, Justin M'Carthy against Parnell,
Arthur Griffith against John Redmond, John O'Leary against Lear
O'Johnny, Lord Edward Fitzgerald against Lord Gerald
Fitzedward, The O'Donoghue of The Glens against The Glens of
The O'Donoghue. On an eminence, the centre of the earth, rises the
feldaltar of Saint Barbara. Black candles rise from its gospel and
epistle horns. From the high barbacans of the tower two shafts of
light fall on the smokepalled altarstone. On the altarstone Mrs Mina

Purefoy, goddess of unreason, lies, naked, fettered, a chalice resting
on her swollen belly. Father Malachi O'Flynn in a lace petticoat
and reversed chasuble, his two left feet back to the front, celebrates
camp mass. The Reverend Mr Hugh C Haines Love M. A. in a
plain cassock and mortarboard, his head and collar back to the
front, holds over the celebrant's head an open umbrella.)

(pulling Private Carr) Come on, you're boosed. He insulted me
but I
forgive him. (shouting in his ear) I forgive him for insulting me.
.

.

BLOOM

(over Stephen's shoulder) Yes, go. You see he's incapable.

.

.

PRIVATE CARR

(breaks loose) I'll insult him.

(He rushes towards Stephen, fist outstretched, and strikes him in
the face. Stephen totters, collapses, falls, stunned. He lies prone, his
face to the sky, his hat rolling to the wall Bloom follows and picks it
up.)

(shakes hands with both of the watch in turn) Thank you very
much,
gentlemen. Thank you. (he mumbles confidentially) We don't want
any
scandal, you understand. Father is a wellknown highly respected citizen.

against the scaffolding) Two commercials that were standing fizz in
Jammet's. Like princes, faith. One of them lost two quid on the race.
Drowning his grief. And were on for a go with the jolly girls. So I landed
them up on Behan's car and down to nighttown.

BLOOM

I was just going home by Gardiner street when I happened to ...

CORNY KELLEHER

(laughs) Sure they wanted me to join in with the mots. No, by
God, says I.
Not for old stagers like myself and yourself. (he laughs again and leers
with lacklustre eye) Thanks be to God we have it in the house, what,
eh, do

(tries to laugh) He, he, he! Yes. Matter of fact I was just visiting
an old
friend of mine there, Virag, you don't know him (poor fellow, he's laid
up
for the past week) and we had a liquor together and I was just making
my
way home ......

Sure it was Behan our jarvey there that told me after we left the two
commercials in Mrs Cohen's and I told him to pull up and got off to see.
(he laughs) Sober hearsedrivers a speciality. Will I give him a
lift home?
Where does he hang out? Somewhere in Cabra, what?

Bloom's plight. The jarvey joins in the mute pantomimic merriment
nodding from the farther seat. Bloom shakes his head in mute
mirthful reply. With thumb and palm Corny Kelleher reassures that
the two bobbies will allow the sleep to continue for what else is to be
done. With a slow nod Bloom conveys his gratitude as that is
exactly what Stephen needs. The car jingles tooraloom round the
corner of the tooraloom lane. Corny Kelleher again reassuralooms
with his hand. Bloom with his hand assuralooms Corny Kelleher
that he is reassuraloomtay. The tinkling hoofs and jingling harness
grow fainter with their tooralooloo looloo lay. Bloom, holding in

his hand Stephen's hat, festooned with shavings, and ashplant,
stands irresolute. Then he bends to him and shakes him by the
shoulder.)

BLOOM

Eh! Ho! (There is no answer. He bends again.) Mr Dedalus! (there
is no
answer) The name if you call. Somnambulist. (he bends again and
hesitating, brings his mouth near the face of the prostrate form) Stephen!
(There is no answer. He calls again.) Stephen!

(he bends again and undoes the buttons
of
Stephen's waistcoat) To breathe. (he brushes the woodshavings from
Stephen's clothes with light hand and fingers) One pound seven. Not
hurt
anyhow. (he listens) What?

(He stretches out his arms, sighs again and curls his body. Bloom,
holding the hat and ashplant, stands erect. A dog barks in the
distance. Bloom tightens and loosens his grip on the ashplant. He
looks down on Stephen's face and form.)

BLOOM

(communes with the night) Face reminds me of his poor mother.
In the
shady wood. The deep white breast. Ferguson, I think I caught. A girl.

Some girl. Best thing could happen him. (he murmurs) ..swear that
I will
always hail, ever conceal, never reveal, any part or parts, art or arts
..(he
murmurs) ..in the rough sands of the sea ..a cabletow's length from
the
shore.... where the tide ebbs.... and flows .....

.

.

(Silent, thoughtful, alert he stands on guard, his fingers at his
lips in
the attitude of secret master. Against the dark wall a figure appears
slowly, a fairy boy of eleven, a changeling, kidnapped, dressed in an
Eton suit with glass shoes and a little bronze helmet, holding a book
in his hand. He reads from right to left inaudibly, smiling, kissing
the page.)

(gazes, unseeing, into Bloom's eyes and goes on reading, kissing,
smiling
He has a delicate mauve face. On his suit he has diamond and ruby
buttons. In his free left hand he holds a slim ivory cane with a violet
bowknot. A white lambkin peeps out of his waistcoat pocket.)